


Catnip

by earliegrey



Series: smokescreen and sins [1]
Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: M/M, Too Many Characters to Tag, Yakuza/ Spy AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-29
Updated: 2014-06-29
Packaged: 2018-02-06 18:59:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1868883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/earliegrey/pseuds/earliegrey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aomine meets a stray cat.</p><p>(Basically about Aomine being in the Yakuza and a certain red-headed cop that Aomine calls a stray.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Catnip

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, Earlie here~ I wanted to write some kind of series of...one-shots about the Yakuza/Spy AU that I posted earlier. This will be put in a series called smokescreen and sins (as you can see, I'm really bad at naming things haha.)
> 
> Sorry this isn't nsfw, but it was really fun to write about their beginnings and just expand a bit more on the universe. ^q^ 
> 
> As always, please think of their age somewhere in their late-twenties to thirties. If the characters are ooc, please forgive me since it's my first time writing them. :D;; Writing isn't my forte and this is also self-beta'd, so excuse the mistakes please!
> 
> *a note: I like to read stuff on a03 when it's on 75% zoomed out. The big texts scare me.

Missions, however simple they sound are never clean cut.

There are strings attached to this, details of what risks he’ll run into, the ever-growing list of people who want him dead—these are things that  _he_ doesn’t tell him but are typed in fine print, sitting within pages and pages of the file he hands him.

He tries not to think about it, the layers and layers of secrecy and masks he has to hide underneath—it’s all too dizzying for a simple guy like him. Instead, he flips the manila folder open to the only page important to him: the first. Time and location is printed in block text right under the red stamp:  _Classified._

**Ginza Hotel, fifth floor bar, 22:00 , Matsumaru Kenta.**

“He’s going to make a deal with the Akashis, make sure it happens,” Hyuuga says, and hands him a Walther with three extra magazines. There’s a crease between his brows. “It should be easy, Intel tells us there’ll be no outside interference— but there is a faction of yours that will want him dead, afraid he’ll rat them out on their partnership. Avoid killing them, we need them for interrogation.”

The gun feels heavy in his hand.

“And, at twenty three hundred, our agents will make a five-block perimeter around the hotel. Get clear by then.” Hyuuga holds in a bated breath, like he expects him to refuse, throw down the gun and walk away. But he shrugs and slips it away under his jacket of a very nicely tailored suit.

“Understood.”

He chews for a moment, pauses and then—

“How’s…Momoi?” he asks, voice low, casual—professional. Hyuuga’s glasses glint when he lifts his head with something like a small smile.

“Doing all right, she’s been taken to America. They have the best doctors there.” Hyuuga inhales slowly and leans back on his desk, crossing his arms, fingers tapping against his sleeve. “Aomine, your cooperation is invaluable to us. Keep up the good work and I assure you, she’ll receive the best care offered in that country.”

Aomine’s lip twitches into a smile, tight and just very brief. “Yes, of course. Thank you.”

——

Aomine is full of lies and different kinds of sins, and he knows this very well when he sits on his knees in front of a shogi board, sipping on warm sake from a porcelain cup. A woman—elegant in a blue kimono and red-orange obi, lightly-powdered face and hair drawn up—pours him another glass.

(In the crux of his character, he’s only a simple man with a foul mouth, crude gestures, and obsessed with big breasts and magazine models with breast sizes ten times too big for their own good—sometimes he also likes the look of an exposed nape, vulnerable and delicious.)

“Daiki,” the other man says and Aomine’s eyes slide away from her dainty hands resting on her lap, and he quirks a brow at the board. A shogi piece is placed carefully in an empty space next to his pawn. “Do you happen to know who controls about 2% of the Japanese economy?”

“The Akashis,” Aomine says without missing a beat. He drinks his sake slowly and feels the alcohol burn down his throat.

(But then he also likes the smell of gunpowder, the electricity in his veins when he snaps someone’s head off their spine, and is obsessed with blades gliding through skin like silk with ribbons of red unfurling.)

“Precisely. It’s a petty exchange but one that Father wants fulfilled,” Akashi says calmly, eyes shutting. He holds the sleeve of his casual black robe as he lifts the cup to his lips. “Over the years, Matsumaru has been collecting pieces of stock from the companies we are investing in and now he’d like to strike a deal. In exchange, he wants protection.”

“Haha, what a pussy,” Aomine laughs under his breath.

Akashi doesn’t bat an eye. “Ginza hotel. He’ll be in contact with one of our men. Keep an eye on the transaction. You’ll be going with Takeshi and Hideyoshi.”

“Ah.”

“Oh, and dispose of them,” Akashi says, whimsical, a lilt in his voice. “They’ve become useless once they started smuggling a portion of our exchanges and selling it on a separate market.”

“Oh? That’s heavy.” Aomine picks up his knight and moves it next to Akashi’s bishop, into it’s blind spot. “A finger no longer satisfies you?”

There’s a rare chuckle, Akashi’s gleaming eyes open. “Not at all. Times have changed; trust is everything in a family. A hunch is a sliver of doubt. And as you know, all doubts need to be eliminated.”

And in a swift movement his lance devours the knight.

“The hotel diagram has been delivered to your room. Have you read it?”

In the next three moves, Aomine sees his loss, the king would be at the mercy of Akashi’s silver. “Of course. There’s not a thing to worry about, it’ll be smooth,” Aomine promises as he stands to leave.

(Aomine has got the hotel layout memorized, from the top to bottom, and top again.)

——

“Your elbow’s healed now, but barely,” Midorima says, gloved hands gripping Aomine’s arm through his sleeves and at the joint. “Don’t over-strain it again or you’ll be looking at permanent damage and a retirement from kenjutsu.”

Aomine works his arm, feeling weird kinks and tight muscle pop and pull at the movement. He winces, the pain is dull but still there. “Thanks. Sort of.”

“You’re too reckless, Aomine,” Midorima warns and he plucks the latex from his fingers, one by one, taking his time.

“Oh, but I do try to be careful,” Aomine mocks him in the annoyingly patronizing way that he knows Midorima can’t stand. The office feels a lot smaller once Aomine is standing, though it may have to do with the anatomical posters decorating the walls.

Midorima throws the glove into the trash bin—perfect shot.

“Yes, but since that incident, you’ve been slipping,” Midorima says, voice quiet as if there are ears embedded in the walls. “All things that are broken and have lost their purpose will be discarded. It’s best to move on from that—for survival.”

Aomine doesn’t blink, doesn’t turn around to look at him. “I know that.”

“One day, you’ll find yourself on the receiving end of Father’s death penalty.” There are various clinks as Midorima cleans away his desk, putting rolls of gauze and medicinal ointments back into their kits. “And when that happens, no one will save you.”

Aomine finds himself laughing as he shrugs his suit jacket back on, he winces just a bit at the dull pang when he bends his arm. “That’s assuming if I ever get myself down that path first.”

(Aomine pretends to not believe it, even if somewhere in the back of his head, he knows he does.

Midorima’s right. No one can save him then.)

——

Aomine arrives early, in a handsome three piece suit of premium fabrics, tailored to accentuate the lines of his body. Near the counter top, there’s a woman with dark curls that reach past her shoulders, dolled up in a silver cocktail dress clinging to the curves of her hips.

She’s not impressive, not his type, a bit gaudy and overbearing with her shimmering jewelry but he needs an accessory and easily strolls toward her with a gentleman’s smile, smooth like butter and—he buys her a drink and offers idle chatter.

She attempts to play hard to get, but Aomine leans a little toward her, gaze smoldering like his smile, and asks if she would like to join him for dinner because  _it’d be lovely to get to know you more._

She’s sold and a little giddy—(on his lies and the cherry cocktail he’s laced with slow-acting sleeping drugs.)

——

Matsumaru Kenta is a spoiled man. The girth of his waist is wide, the collar of his expensive suit is stretched around his neck, and there’s a stain from the grease of the foie gras on the sleeve of his shirt.

Wine and dinner goes for forty thousand yen a piece, and of course he can afford it because he’s a businessman, sitting on a wealth of successful stocks and black market deals.

He eats first and eats alone. Half an hour passes, and Aomine is barely holding a two-sided conversation with the woman. He’s bored beyond death and it’s hard to pretend to be interested. Aomine’s associate finally shows up, sits down and imposes on Matsumaru, two courses before the deal begins.

His colleagues—tonight’s prey— sit hunched on the bar stools just a bit away, poring over their drinks, eyes peeled and alert for the transaction to begin.

Their conversation is a dull one, Aomine notes, listening in. About horses, women, the lavish countryside houses that Matsumaru owns but never stepped foot in.

Across Aomine, the woman is rambling about her apartment, just two blocks away in a pretentious, snooty— _lusting_  voice, Aomine wishes she’d fall asleep sooner.

(She does later on, falling face first into her seafood compote just as a—” _Also, tell your boss that I have some of your members—”_  is breathed into their earpieces.

Shots are fired and the police is dialed.)

——

Aomine isn’t thrilled to have a conflict of interest when it comes to accepting two missions from two different, opposing organizations. But it’s a blessing in disguise that there are two targets.

He cocks a gun into the jaw of one of the blubbering fools and rips a bullet down his throat and into his spine. As for the other—

Aomine leaves him in the stairwell, screaming with a pocket knife in his thigh, blade having been worked deep until it grazed against bone.

——

“I put a knife in one of them,” Aomine says, indignant because this is the first time he’s messed up on a job, and he can’t have that. It  _wasn’t_ his fault. “In his  _fucking_ leg—he shouldn’t have bled out until another half hour—”

“Someone gunned him down before we got him,” Hyuuga says, calmer than what Aomine had expected. Aomine stops pacing the room and takes in a deep breath. “A glock, 9 mm. Not yours. It’s someone else.”

“Didn’t see anyone,” Aomine mutters, and it’s true. He hasn’t seen anyone after he washed his hands of gunpowder residue and left the hotel (and the woman who would wake to her appetizer in her face a few hours later.)

——

“Matsumaru again?” Aomine asks, arms crossed over his chest, and leaning against the bamboo screen doors. Akashi’s back is turned on him, but there’s no doubt there’s a shogi board in front of him. “Should’ve told me earlier. I would’ve killed them all.”

“If he was dead earlier, we wouldn’t have had his stocks hacked and transferred. There’s no use for him now. Be clean about it,” he says. There’s a clack of wood on wood. “Daiki, remind me…my orders are…?”

“Absolute,” Aomine says, hand casually resting on his hip, on his sword. “And opposition is death.”

——

Matsumaru’s living grounds are as luxurious as the twenty grand suits he so easily spoils with the extravagant five-star meals he so frequently has. He also has many hired guards, most of them which did shit when Aomine ran up from behind, katana in hand and cut a neat line across their throats.

They drop dead, twitching as blood gushes from their throats and stain the stone tiles of the Japanese garden. Aomine glances around; it’s pitch black, dark, and the only light spills from the windows of the main house—full of noise and unnecessary people.

There’s a party here, most probably full of influential doctors, lawyers, the kind of people with fat wallets and dirty cash stowed away in some security box at home.

Either he kills them all, or kills Matsumaru alone.

Aomine meticulously takes a cloth and cleans the edges of his blade before he makes light and soundless steps toward the main house. Peering in through a window crack, maybe it’d be easier to kill him when he’s fuzzy and loose, worn down by his own wine at the end of the party.

There are too many people here for him to needlessly slaughter.

Aomine isn’t partial to waiting since he is a bit impatient but Akashi  _did_ say to make it clean.

——

The security guards are long dead and littering the courtyards and it’s a wonder how Matsumaru’s guests, about fifty of them—Aomine’s counted—bumbles on home without noticing the lack of guards or the sudden presence of dead bodies.

It doesn’t matter much, especially since in a matter of half an hour, the guests have funneled out, leaving Matsumaru alone and vulnerable. He’s drunk on many cups of sake which will make this a particularly  _easy_  hit, like taking candy from a baby.

He stalks along the lanai, and creeps up to the window of Matsumaru’s bedroom. There’s a faint bulky shadow of a figure lying on the floor. Aomine unsheathes his katana and the metal screeches softly. There’s another dull sting of pain from his arm, but Aomine reaches a hand to open the window—

Something quick whizzes by his head, and he freezes when the wall near his head cracks. A bullet has buried deep into the concrete—(it had grazed his cheek barely. If he was another millimeter to the right, he would’ve been dead.)

Aomine turns—there’s no one there. Eyes narrowed, he peers into the darkness,  hand on his blade, knees bent and—

(He  _swears_  he’s offed all the guards, there can’t be another one hiding—)

Aomine  _feels_ it instead of hears it; the bullet blazes into the hilt of his sword and a sharp pain blooms in his hand. His katana skids far against the floor and before he could react, Aomine finds the butt of a gun swerving toward his face.

He barely dodges and hooks a neat punch into the man’s gut, grabs him by the neck and slams him into the wall. Aomine couldn’t keep a hold on him for long—the man is slippery and weasels his way out despite his blocky frame.

A cuff to the side of his head with the gun barrel has Aomine spinning to the floor. A body  _crushes_ him down then—knocking the air from his lungs— and a hand squeezes fingers into his throat while the gun is shoved against his cheekbone.

“Huh,” the man huffs, and Aomine can barely see into the shadows of his face. The dim light from the master bedroom glints off scarlet hair. “Not bad. Aren’t you a bit too young to be playing with kitchen knives though.”

“Cheeky. You’re not bad yourself,” Aomine croaks and he flexes his fingers against the floor and then into the inside of his arm cuff—(Aomine had refused hidden blades in his suit a while back because they were never his thing, but Midorima  _insisted_  and well, here Aomine is—he may have to thank him. Later.) “But a silencer and ambush. How dirty.”

“Only way I play,” the man breathes with a smirk; the gun lowers from his face down to his neck. Aomine feels a chill when the metal bites at his skin. “I have to say though, you should’ve gone for the kill when you had my neck.”

Aomine doesn’t blink when the man tilts his head a certain angle—the light outlines cheekbones and a deep scowl. “You have a million, tiny blades in your cuff, so why didn’t you.”

“You would’ve died to a prick in your jugular, and  _that’s_  a bit pathetic,” Aomine says, barely above a whisper. He’s touched a nerve because the gun is dragged from his neck, runs along the seams of his suit before it’s stabbed into his right elbow.

“So you hesitated.”

Aomine’s pulse flutters rapidly and he tenses—the man notices.

“How funny,” he remarks without a smile, and his thighs slides along his.“…are you one of those samurai wannabees descended from some kind of pure blood line?”

Aomine swallows a bit.

“‘Cus wouldn’t it be a fucking shame…” Aomine doesn’t try to breathe or break eye contact with the glint of red. There’s a shit-eating grin on his face that Aomine wants to punch. “—if I blew out your elbow. Can’t kill anymore after that, huh. Not with your kitchen knife at least. ”

“Killing—I can do with my left hand, hell even my legs. But you’re right, it’d be a shame,” Aomine supplies, words smooth off his tongue despite the rising bile in the back of his throat. “I won’t be able to cook anymore, not like I cooked anyways.”

Aomine doesn’t know why but that made the man’s grip lessen just a bit. But that’s all the opening he needs to break out of his hold and throw him against the wall, gun knocked away to join his katana. And in a second, one of those tiny, teeny scalpels, is pinched between his knuckles and grazing the man’s throat.

“Who do you work for,” Aomine demands, and in this light he sees his face fully: defined jaw, deep scowl with a cut lip—probably from their scuffle earlier—and brilliant, dark, red eyes. There’s a defiant look in his gaze and he turns his face away with something almost like a pout.

“Shit, does it matter when you’re going to fucking slit my throat?”

“It’d be helpful, yeah,” Aomine grumbles, he presses the knife closer to his neck and feels him flinch back (hitting his head up against the wall). “So I know who to have my hit on next.”

The man licks his bottom lip. “Hyuuga Junpei, or actually…Aida Riko, the big boss herself,” he says and Aomine stares, eyes widening just a fraction. “Judging by the stupid look on your face, nobody told you about me, huh. Ever heard of Kagami Taiga?”

“The hell are you talking about,” Aomine snarls under his breath, but his grip on the blade weakens a bit.

“Still playing dumb? Well then. How about this? …Momoi Satsuki,” Kagami says and it’s a trigger that has Aomine slam his other hand and crush his throat against the wall. He chokes, scarlet eyes widening and hand flying up to grip at his wrist. “Fucking  _asshole_ —”

There’s a low rumble in his throat when Aomine’s fingers curl tight around his neck, and a flush climbs up Kagami’s face. Aomine bends over him, voice low and eyes narrowed. “How the fuck do you know about her.”

Wetness lines Kagami’s eyes, and he starts coughing, baring his teeth in a growl. “She went to America. Ever wonder who the fuck escorted her there? And she’s  _fine,_  if you’re going to fucking ask, doesn’t remember a thing about some blue-headed dick—”

“Give me a reason why I shouldn’t just kill you now.”

“I’m a cop. We’re on the same side,” he breathes, voice hoarse. “I’ve heard about you. Just wanted to see how tough you were.”

“Oh yeah?” Aomine lets go, his arm drops down to his side and the knife falls with a small clatter. “…well, fuck you,” he says under his breath and gets onto his feet. Kagami slumps against the wall, shoulders sagging and fingers touching his neck. “You could’ve said that  _before_  attacking me.”

“Not like you lost a limb or shit,” Kagami growls and then licks his lips. When he stands up, Aomine notices he’s about as tall as him, maybe a bit shorter. It’s really hard to see in the lack of light. “ _Besides_ , the guy you’re going after, he’s dead. Poisoned him an hour ago and he just dropped like a fly. I shot him in the face to fit your M.O—”

Aomine sheathes his sword, feeling the familiar weight return to his side. “Oi…aren’t you’re a fucking  _cop_ , how the hell—”

“Just because I have the badge for a cop doesn’t mean I’ve got to act like one.” Kagami picks up his gun, a glock, 9 mm—and Aomine suddenly realizes why Hyuuga didn’t seem that disturbed about both of Matsumaru’s targets being dead. “I’m a special agent, the laws don’t touch me.”

“Peachy,” Aomine mutters, patting down the dust on his suit.

“Isn’t it?” Kagami says. He takes a step closer toward him, and Aomine drifts away, aware of their closing distance. There’s a smirk on Kagami’s lips, one that is cocky and spiting. Their breaths mingles—Aomine can smell light traces of smoke while his fingers automatically float along to the handle of his sword.

“Well, I’m done here. It’s been fun. See you later.”

——

There’s barely a few weeks in between before Aomine sees him again at a bar.

Kagami is in a casual suit without a tie, collar flared open showing off a tanned patch of neck and collarbones.

He’s with an associate, or someone that seemed to be an associate, since he has a glass of wine in his hand and an amiable smile on his lips—which looks weird as fuck on him since he struck Aomine as a scowling and shit-eating grin type of guy. (So much like him.)

Aomine contents himself to drinking on the other side of the bar, watching the cop from the corner of his eye while simultaneously holding a conversation with a curious woman about his (nonexistent) trips to Europe.

Aomine chalks it up to curiosity, because this guy is a rare breed—it’s not every day when there’s a guy who calls himself a cop and murders a man. Most cops have a thread of moral justice in them, and  _that_  is the only glaring difference between being a cop and a yakuza when both carry a gun and shoot people.

But this guy is something interesting, Aomine thinks, rolling the fine wine with his tongue before swallowing.

Across the bar, Kagami stumbles just a bit over his own dress shoes, laughs loud and leans heavily against the other (bigger) man, arm thrown around his shoulder as he buys him a refill.

From where Aomine can see, Kagami’s face is flushed red,  _he’s_   _fucking wasted_ , and the man’s fingers float a bit too close to Kagami’s waist. Aomine wishes he imagined it, but then the hand slips to grab his ass and Aomine nearly spits his drink—

_What the fuck is he doing?_

Kagami doesn’t do anything—he laughs a bit, maybe thinks the touch was funny and impersonal. And  _this_ isn’t the same guy that had pinned Aomine down on the floor with a hand on his throat.

It’s almost infuriating to watch.

Aomine takes a gulp of wine before he sees Kagami slide himself closer, hand tracing along the man’s belt before it turns and dips into the man’s pocket, just so slightly.

There’s a silver usb pinched between his fingers when he pulls his hand out and Kagami tucks it quickly away into his sleeve, just before leaning in to laugh into the man’s neck.

It was only for a moment, but Kagami’s movements were precise and quick, and there was no way in hell he could be drunk to pull that off—

Then, Kagami sees him.

He flashes a cocky smirk that has Aomine nearly dropping his glass then and there.

_Oh._

_Oh…_

_It’s a job._

Somehow the thought of that makes him feel a bit surprised but strangely irritated— especially when the man ambles out with Kagami stumbling next to his side, a hand wrapped around his waist just a tad too tight.

——

“This month, everyone but Kise-kun has fulfilled their mission quota,” Kuroko says and smooths down the paper on the ornate round table. “Father is pleased with our progress. Well. Except for Kise-kun.”

Kise whines then, a bit comically and throws his arms in the air—”Kurokocchi, you should give me more missions then!”

“Kuroko is the head of intel,” Midorima says, voice hard and firm, informative and so very annoying in that stuck up way. He sits back in his chair, both arms and legs crossed. “He determines which one of you is more effective for a hit. It just says that your lack of missions is merely a reflection of your lack of skill.”

“So mean, Midorimacchi—!”

Aomine ignores them and stares straight at the European paintings on the wall of a very English room. He finds it weird how there is a European manor attached to a traditional Japanese-styled complex, but now that he thinks about it, it’s probably the  _Father’s_  whim. As always, everything is done on a whim.

The four of them are dismissed. Midorima walks out with Kise close behind, pestering him about giving him more of those tiny, little knives, they’re so helpful, and Murasakibara saunters away and back to the storage where he handles the imports of black market items.

Kuroko stays behind, having already gathered his folders into a neat pile. “Aomine-kun. Your record has been spotless so far, but I can’t help but notice that for the last two hits, you used a…gun… is your arm all right?”

Aomine opens his eyes, and kicks back in his chair, stretching. “Aa, Midorima says not to strain it. It’s not broken, don’t worry, Tetsu.”

There’s an unreadable expression in his eyes before he ducks his head and bows politely. “Well then, excuse me.”

——

Sometimes he sees Kagami a bit too often, either fulfilling a job or a hit, or just sitting at a bar with a drink in hand and making conversation with a woman, a man, or a group of them together. But most of the time, Aomine isn’t the one who finds him first.

Aomine will always sit alone at restaurants or a bar having a meal or a drink, and Kagami will sometimes come along, tap his shoulder and invite himself to eat/ drink with him— _“Get your own table, fucker.” “I can’t wait that long, there’s a line. I’m starving, you selfish bastard.”_

It’s happened enough times that Aomine is starting to expect his company more often than not.

Other times, Aomine doesn’t see him at all for stretches of days to a weeks time. The lack of a Kagami starts becoming as jarring as the sudden presence of a Kagami. Aomine tries not to let it get to his head.

 ——

“Oh? So you’ve met him,” Kiyoshi, Hyuuga’s right hand man, speaks up when Aomine mentions him briefly in passing while kicking back on one of the sofas in the office. “He’s our ace, the best agent of the team. He can be a bit hot headed, but he does his job when he needs to. He has a nickname here— they call him Tiger.”

“Huh, that so,” Aomine hums and listens to Kiyoshi ramble on about their rigorous training and about how Kagami literally ate the training facility out of their budget for food, but as long as they bred a trained, killing beast, the government was willing to chuck money at him to keep him fed.

“That’s kind of funny,” Aomine mutters, a grin quirking on his lips. He remembers Kagami showing up one time, suit torn up from a minor gas leak explosion, and demanding Aomine to show some humanity and buy him dinner since his wallet was wrecked. Thinking back on it, Aomine was not as irritated as he thought he should be.

“He’s….more like a stray cat if you ask me.”

——

“Aomine-kun, I know I shouldn’t pry but you’ve been withdrawing double than what you normally do for your off days,” Kuroko says, standing by the door of the gym. Aomine lifts the towel up from around his neck and pats the sweat beading on his forehead. “But I was wondering if there’s been anything…”

Aomine wipes himself up and rubs his face last to smother a smirk. “No, it’s been great, just feeding a stray, that’s all.”

——

Limping into the bar, where most of the yakuza lackeys hang out, Aomine overhears a swell of gossip about a new batch of newbies, one that had especially caught Akashi’s eye.

“They’re promising,” someone whispers over a hard drink on the rocks. “I think they’ll climb up rank. Akashi, himself, was at the orientation.”

And that’s about all he hears when he orders a scotch to numb the blitzing pain of a dislocated-then-relocated arm that’s been cut with sharp rocks one too many times.

——

“You’ve been seeing a woman.” Kise takes a wild shot in the dark while Aomine is wrapping his arms and fingers with medicinal tape. “That’s the only reason why you’re not hanging around the house.”

Aomine lifts a brow at him, and then huffs. “Sorry, but I don’t love you guys enough to spend all my hours here, even  _if_  I’m not seeing a woman.”

“Aominecchi, you’re breaking my heart here,” Kise says with a whine, making wild theatrical gesture with his arms. “I won’t be jealous. Don’t hide her from me—tell me who’s the apple of your eye~?”

“I’m not hiding anything, so fuck off.”

——

(“So. Enlighten me, what is your top secret, secret mission?” Aomine asked, pinching a bit of dark red hair and twirling it around his finger.

Kagami had sprawled himself all over the oak table of the hotel Aomine’s staying for the night, eyes closed, and head cushioned on his arm. Next to him was his fourth glass of sweet wine. The red flushing his cheeks wasn’t an act and it took a while for him to mumble, “Hmm, can’t tell you, ass. That’s the point of a secret mission.”

“Okay, whatever, kitty cat,” Aomine said and his fingers drifted down to pat his hair.

Kagami swatted his hand, irritated. “The fuck are you calling a cat, asshole.”

Aomine was on his fifth glass, and there was a warmth in his chest and a laziness that had seeped into his bones. He couldn’t bother himself to feign annoyance, so he just brushed his hand lazily over the dusty red hair on his head.)

It’s been three months, since he’s last seen him.

Perhaps he’s found someone else to mooch off of, or maybe curiosity had finally killed the cat.

Whatever the case, Aomine doesn’t miss him.

——

Aomine stands a little bit behind the opened bamboo screen doors, hand casually resting on the hilt of his sword. The golden lanterns hanging in the corners of the room give a gentle glow and Akashi is inside the room with Midorima.

Aomine clears his voice just a bit, interrupting their shogi match. “So, what do you want?”

Midorima pauses and is the first to look up. His brow is creased in irritation,  but it could be the way the shadows are falling over his face. “Tell me you have an idea why you’re here.”

“Not a fucking clue,” Aomine says with a heavy sigh and invites himself in.

“Arrogance, Aomine,” Midorima sighs and pushes his glasses up. The glare skids across the glass and nearly blinds Aomine. “There’s been reports that you overstepped your boundaries, even disregarded sound judgment.”

“And it’s also written in the reports that I said if I didn’t go on ahead, we would’ve let the bitch escape.” Aomine casually shrugs and pockets his hand. “I don’t see the problem—”

“The  _problem_ ,” Midorima repeats with a hiss in his throat. “Is that you disobeyed orders in the favor of working on your own—”

“Shintarou,” Akashi interrupts and Midorima pauses, sucking in a breath and hardenining his gaze. Akashi gives Aomine a cool stare, hand playing and rolling a shogi piece around. “Daiki, what he says is true. We’ve decided that you’re in need of a partnership.”

“I’m fine on my own,” Aomine growls, baring his teeth. “Send me on solo hits instead. When you send me in teams, the others are inexperienced, calculative—”

“Daiki,” Akashi warns him again. Aomine falls quiet, biting back a deep scowl and a string of curses. “Please see it as a supplement for your well-being. After all, we’re a family. Teamwork and trust is required for this line of work.”

Aomine glares at the shogi board and then down at the Tatami mats.

“Your new partner is rather talented, please train him well. He’s under your care.”

——

His new partner is going to live in the room next to his, and under no circumstance is he to let him act alone. The rookie is promising, Midorima told him, but needs to be under careful watch, at least until he can handle solo missions on his own.

Any mess, Aomine’s to clean up. Any mistake is Aomine’s to shoulder.

A whole lot of fucking trouble, that’s what it is.

Aomine reaches his room, the fourth down the hall. The fifth one had been storage for some time, but now boxes has been moved out into the halls, probably by some lower ranking yakuza. He doesn’t care much. He’s tired, having come back from supervising another petty drug exchange.

When Aomine opens his door, he notices something’s off. Some of his belongings have shifted, minutely, but there’s no doubt it’s been disturbed. The magazines lying on his low table had been picked up and perused through, and his futon on the floor had been nudged just a bit to the left.

Aomine isn’t a fan of fighting within the quarters, but there’s something  _off_  and he knows that the other Kisekis, while capable of sneaking into his room, aren’t stupid enough to rifle.

He feels the hair on the back of his neck rise and before he could whisk around with his katana drawn, a sting of a very cold metal slowly presses into the back of his head. There’s a familiar purr in his ear and the heat radiates down his neck in waves.

“Long time no see, Ao-mi- _ne_.”

Aomine ducks suddenly, turns and reaches out to grab the cuff of his shirt. He slams his back into the wooden post near the door, and Aomine looks down, grin forming at the smug look on Kagami’s face. “Didn’t think you’d turn up here of all places.”

“Well, I did say top secret,” Kagami says. “Didn’t say what for, where at, and how long.”

“And will you look at that.” Aomine feels a laugh bubble deep from his throat, and he lets his shirt go. “The stray kitty has finally followed me home.”

**Author's Note:**

> I have to admit that writing Kagami like this is really refreshing. ^q^;;; We always see Aomine being the chaser and the one to push all the wrong buttons, so I decided to sort of reverse that. I just hope that maybe they weren't too out of character and stuff. 8D;
> 
> I plan to write more of this kind of stuff, so keep on the look out~~
> 
> And as always, if you enjoyed it comments are very, very nice...please give me some. ^q^;;;/ /slapped.


End file.
